Advisory Board

JOANNE KAMENS, PhD

Executive Director, Addgene

Dr. Kamens is the Executive Director of Addgene, a mission driven, nonprofit dedicated to helping scientists around the world share useful research reagents and data. Addgene was the 2016 Boston Globe #1 Top Place to Work in the small company category. Dr. Kamens received her PhD in Genetics from Harvard Medical School then spent 15 years as a researcher and manager in Pharma at BASF/Abbott working on both small molecule and antibody therapies for immune disease. In 2007 she joined RXi Pharmaceuticals as Senior Director of Research Collaborations. Dr. Kamens has been raising awareness of women scientists since 1998 upon realizing that an entire week had gone by at work and not one other woman had been at any meeting she attended. She founded the current Boston chapter of the Association for Women in Science. In 2010, Dr. Kamens received the Catalyst Award from the Science Club for Girls for longstanding dedication to empowering women in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics and in 2013, she was named one of PharmaVoice’s 100 Most Inspiring Commanders & Chiefs. She serves on a number of other nonprofit boards and speaks widely on career development and workplace diversity topics in person and via Webinar.

PAULA STEPHAN, PhD

Professor of Economics, Georgia State University

Paula Stephan is professor of economics, Georgia State University and a research associate, National Bureau of Economic Research. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the Board of Reviewing Editors, Science. Science Careers named Stephan their first “Person of the Year” in December of 2012 “honoring an individual who, during the past 12 months, has made an especially significant and sustained contribution to the welfare of early-career scientists.” Stephan has published numerous articles in such journals as The American Economic Review, The Journal of Economic Literature, Management Science, Nature, Organization Science, and Science. Her book How Economics Shapes Science was published by Harvard University Press, 2012. Her research has been supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the National Science Foundation. Stephan currently serves on the National Academies Committee on the Next Generation of Researchers Initiative. Recently she served on the National Research Council’s Board on Higher Education and Workforce and the Committee to Review the State of the Postdoctoral Experience for Scientists and Engineers. She served on the National Advisory General Medical Sciences Council, National Institutes of Health 2005-2009 and served on the Advisory Committee of the Social, Behavioral, and Economics Program, National Science Foundation, 2001-2008 (CEOSE, 2001-2003). She has held visiting positions at the Max Planck Institute, Munich, Germany, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, Harvard University, International Center for Economic Research, Turin, Italy, and the Wizzenschaftszentrum für Social Forschung, Berlin, Germany.

VITEK TRACZ

Chairman and Founder, F1000

Vitek Tracz is the chairman and founder of the F1000 Group. Vitek studied Mathematics in Warsaw and Jerusalem, and cinema at the Slade School of Art in London. Over the years he has developed a number of innovative publishing projects: the Current Opinion series of journals in many areas of biology and clinical medicine; as well as some important primary journals including Current Biology, Structure, Genome Biology, AIDS, and the Journal of Hypertension; and web-based projects including BioMedNet, the Investigational Drugs Database (IDdb), the first Open Access publisher BioMed Central, and now F1000. F1000 combines a set of tools to help researchers write research articles (F1000Workspace), a large literature service identifying the most interesting research articles as selected by a faculty of over 10,000 leading experts in all areas of Biology and Medicine (F1000Prime), and an innovative publishing platform for publishing original research, F1000Research.

SARAH GOODWIN, PhD

Manager, iBiology

Sarah Goodwin, PhD, is the Director of iBiology, a science communication and outreach non-profit that produces videos about biology, research, and the scientific community. There, she has many roles, including implementing the strategic vision, leading the team, and overseeing video production. Sarah has worked with leading scientists in a wide variety of fields to help them communicate their research to a worldwide audience. Sarah received her PhD in Cell Biology from the University of California, San Francisco.

MANU SARNA, MEng, MBA

Head of B2B Marketing, Partnerships & Business Development, Swift Capital

Manu is a strong advocate for the sciences and enabling other to fulfill their potential. He has over 20 years’ experience in marketing and partnerships in consumer goods, retail, travel and financial services. He is formerly a consultant with The Boston Consulting Group and holds an MEng from the University of Nottingham in the UK and an MBA from Ivey Business School in Canada.

NANCY SCHWARTZ, PhD

Professor, and Dean for Postdoctoral Affairs, University of Chicago

Dr. Nancy B. Schwartz is Professor at the University of Chicago in the Departments of Pediatrics and Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and the Committees on Developmental Biology and Molecular Medicine. Dr. Schwartz is an active researcher, having published more than 150 manuscripts and reviews, with continuous NIH funding. Her research focuses on the roles of the extracellular matrix (ECM) during development of the skeletal and nervous systems, and her lab has identified several mutations in ECM genes that lead to chondrodystrophies and other developmental disorders. She has trained 18 PhD and MD/PhD students, 36 postdoctoral fellows, and has been preceptor for several young clinical faculty members. She was/is PI for several multi-PI research and training programs including a P30 and P01, an MD/PhD training grant, a PREP, an IMSD, a NRMN supplement and the HHMI Med-into- Grad Program. She was Dean for Graduate Affairs (1985-2010), on the GRE Board of Directors, the NPA Advisory Board, the AAMC GREAT Graduate Deans and Postdoc Steering Committees (and chair of both), the NAS Committee to Review the State of the Postdoctoral Experience (COSEPUP), and has served on several study sections and editorial boards. Currently, Dr. Schwartz is Dean for Postdoctoral Affairs, a member of NIH Director’s Early Investigator Award, Executive Board of the Leadership Alliance and NHBLI PEG Advisory Board. She has been awarded the 2016 NPA Distinguished Service award and the University of Chicago Faculty Diversity Leadership Award. Dr. Schwartz’s function and responsibilities in graduate and postdoctoral education, training and program administration, have focused on the evolving and complex needs of emerging researchers in the life sciences.

Becky left the academic track soon after obtaining her PhD in Immunology and has never looked back. She has worked as a science editor, at Nature and Current Biology; founded the journal Chemistry & Biology, now Cell Chemical Biology (with Vitek Tracz); managed drug development projects at Genentech; set up Genentech’s office for academic collaboration; initiated the first high-throughput chemical screening effort in US academia, the Institute for Chemistry and Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School (HMS); and supported founding Chair Marc Kirschner in creating HMS’s new Department of Systems Biology. The most prominent words in her career wordcloud would be “interdisciplinary”, “start-up”, “communication” and “varied”. She is proud to have contributed to the organization of the first Future of Research meeting in Boston in 2014.

C. K. GUNSALUS, JDDirector, National Center for Professional and Research Ethics, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

C. K. Gunsalus is the Director of the National Center for Professional and Research Ethics (NCPRE), Professor Emerita of Business, and Research Professor at the Coordinated Sciences Laboratory. Gunsalus was the PI for the centerpiece project of NCPRE, Ethics CORE, a national online ethics resource center initiated with $1.5M from the National Science Foundation, and is now the PI for its $2.7M project on developing leaders for the research university of the future with Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

She has been on the faculty of the colleges of Business, Law, and Medicine at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and served as Special Counsel in the Office of University Counsel. In the College of Business, she taught Leadership and Ethics in the MBA program and was the director of the required Professional Responsibility course for all undergraduates in the college. In Law, she taught Negotiation and Client Counseling; she was a member of the faculty of the Medical Humanities and Social Science program in the College of Medicine, where she taught communication, conflict resolution and ethics. She has also developed a three-course specialization massively open on-line courses (MOOC) offered through Coursera, and directed at young professionals starting out in the workforce.

In 2004, she was elected a Fellow of the AAAS in recognition of her “sustained contributions to the national debate over improving the practical handling of ethical, legal, professional and administrative issues as they affect scientific research.” She served on the Committee on Responsible Science of the National Academy of Sciences from 2012 through the release of their final report, Fostering Integrity in Research, in 2017. She served on the Illinois Supreme Court’s Commission on Professionalism from 2005 through 2013, was a member of the United States Commission on Research Integrity and served for four years as chair of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility. She also served on the Committee on Research Integrity of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and the Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable Ad Hoc Group on Conflict of Interest.

For many years as an Associate Provost, Gunsalus was responsible for a range of academic policy and administrative duties, including department head training/support and academic policy interpretations and revision. During that time, she was known as the “department of yucky problems,” with duties encompassing oversight of the discrimination and harassment grievance procedure, problem personnel cases and membership on the workplace violence team. Before that, her experience at the University included technology transfer, management of conflicts of interest, human subject protection, and long-term service as the campus Research Standards Officer with responsibility for responding to allegations of professional misconduct by faculty and students.

Ms. Gunsalus graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Illinois College of Law and has an AB with Distinction in History from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is licensed to practice law in the state of Illinois.

She is the author of two Harvard Press books, The College Administrator’s Survival Guide and The Young Professionals Survival Guide, designed to aide academics and young professionals, respectively, as they emerge in their careers.

RAYMOND HOWELL

President, Howell Communications

Raymond P. Howell is the president of Howell Communications, a Boston-based, full-service public relations company he started in 1995. The firm provides strategic communications services to leading corporations, major non-profit organizations and government agencies. Past and present clients include the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Astellas Pharmaceuticals, AT&T, Biogen Idec, Boston Medical Center, Comcast, Consigli Construction, GlaxoSmithKline, The Hanover Insurance Group, the Massachusetts Convention Center, the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center, the Massachusetts Port Authority, the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, Microsoft Corporation, the New England Sports Network, No Boston Olympics, Partners HealthCare, the University of Massachusetts, Waste Management, Wheelabrator Technologies and Wynn Resorts. Business lines include corporate communications, brand marketing, social and digital communications, public affairs, and communications training.

Before forming Howell Communications, Howell managed Governor William F. Weld’s 1994 re-election campaign, engineering the largest gubernatorial victory in modern Massachusetts history. He also served as press secretary for Weld’s first gubernatorial campaign in 1990 and as press secretary and communications director during Weld’s first term as governor. Today Howell is consulted by political leaders from both parties, in addition to corporate executives and boards.

Prior to entering politics and government, Howell was an award-winning political and investigative reporter for several local news organizations. A graduate of Boston University, he speaks frequently to business and academic audiences, and has taught semester communications courses at BU’s College of Communication and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Howell has hosted or lead numerous panel discussions on timely public relations topics, including the future of the media industry, and the firm has sponsored cutting-edge research on consumer news and information trends, including the rise of social media. His articles and work have been featured in numerous publications, including The New York Times, the Huffington Post and The Boston Globe, and he is regularly interviewed on television and radio about political and public relations issues.

HENRY BOURNE, PhD

Emeritus Professor, University of California San Francisco

Henry Bourne holds an AB from Harvard, and a MD from Johns Hopkins. He carried out his medical residency at Columbia with a period as an NIH Pharmacology Research Associate and became a research fellow at the University of California San Francisco. He was faculty in the Department of Medicine and then the Department of Pharmacology, where he also served as Chair of the Department for 9 years. He has published 161 refereed research articles and 110 reviews and book chapters. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine.

STEPHANI PAGE, PhD

Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and Initiator of #BLACKandSTEM Community

Stephani is a postdoc in pharmacology whose research focuses on nutrient sensing and metabolism. She has been committed to advocacy for biomedical research and for diversity, inclusion, and equity in STEM. Stephani is the creator and curator of the #BLACKandSTEM social media community which engages hundreds of STEMprofessionals from underrepresented backgrounds. Her work has led to features by Fast Company, NPR, and Nature.

CHRISTOPHER PICKETT, PhD

Director of Rescuing Biomedical Research

Christopher L. Pickett, Ph.D. is the director of Rescuing Biomedical Research and conducts the day-to-day work of the organization. Prior to joining RBR, Chris was a policy analyst with the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology where he headed up the society’s efforts on improving the sustainability of the research enterprise. He published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on the topic and spearheaded the organization of a meeting to identify action items that would make significant reforms to the enterprise.
Chris got his start in science policy in 2012 as a fellow with the ASBMB, where he worked on legislative and regulatory issues affecting a variety of areas including research funding, portfolio management and training. Before the ASBMB, Chris was a postdoctoral scholar for five years at Washington University in St. Louis, and he received his Ph.D. in Oncological Sciences from the University of Utah in 2006.

SARAH HOKANSON, PhD

Director of Professional Development & Postdoctoral Affairs, Boston University

Sarah Hokanson was appointed as Director of Professional Development and Postdoctoral Affairs at Boston University in February 2015. She is responsible for overseeing all services and programming for the ~400 postdoctoral scholars at Boston University, as well as supporting the development of University policies related to postdoctoral scholarship. Sarah is a PI of a collaborative NSF Alliances in Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) project sponsored by the National Science Foundation focused on developing programs that promote inclusive research environments in order to retain and advance underrepresented graduate students and postdocs in academic careers, and recently co-authored a book chapter focused on developing proactive postdoc mentoring relationships. She also co-chairs the Resource Development Committee of the National Postdoctoral Association.

Prior to joining Boston University, Sarah was US Deputy Director of Science and Innovation at the British Consulate-General, Boston. Sarah holds a BA in Chemistry from Boston University and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Sarah’s graduate research was supported by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program, and she completed a NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein Postdoctoral Fellowship at Cornell University in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology. She received an Executive Education Certificate from MIT Sloan School of Management’s Entrepreneurship Development Program in 2014.